Captivating K'Gari
“The bus is running a bit late this morning,” says ranger Annie. “The barge is pushing the tide.” On K’Gari (Fraser Island), life revolves around these forces of nature: wind, weather and tides. Especially the tides.
We are at Kingfisher Bay Resort, waiting for our 4WD from Fraser Explorer Tours to cross the Great Sandy Strait from River Heads, a trip of about 45 minutes, for the “Beauty Spots” tour.
Once on board, our guide Des explains that K’Gari, meaning “paradise”, is the local Butchulla people’s name for Fraser Island. Covering approximately 166,000 hectares and 123km long, K’Gari is the world’s largest sand island with features including dunes, lakes, mangroves and forests that spring from seemingly infertile sands.
K’Gari’s international significance was recognised with its World Heritage listing in 1992. In 2018, it was included in The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, a network of forest conservation projects in Commonwealth countries.
Our first stop is Lake McKenzie, one of 42 perched sand-dune lakes on K’Gari. They are created by the prevailing south-easterly winds progressively pushing the dunes across the island, explains Des. “As the dunes march northwest, the wind carves out a bowl in the gaps between them.” Eventually, compressed mulch, leaves and branches in the bottom of the bowl solidify into “coffee rock”, which can hold water. “It’s not a true
